Choosing the Right Metrics to Optimize Your Ad Campaign

Choosing the Right Metrics to Optimize Your Ad Campaign

Posted by Gabby Roxas, Community Contributor

Metrics

Metrics (Posted by Gabby Roxas, Community Contributor)

Community Contributor Gabby Roxas

Running a successful Google Ads campaign is one of the end goals that any digital marketer wants to accomplish. However, how does one measure the value of success when it comes to an online ad campaign? For many, coming up with the right metrics to monitor your site's statistics is an important first step. However, what comes next after going through all that data that is presented to you within a certain time frame? How will you be able to measure success and find out if your ad campaign is making a meaningful impact towards your audience?

Establish the Goals of Your CampaignThere are many that dive straight into the various statistical data that Google Analytics has to offer in search of the right metrics that can become the basis of their campaign. However, the very first thing you should do before even going into the numbers is to ask yourself: "What is the main objective that you want your campaign to achieve?" Is it to gain more followers who can eventually be converted into customers? Or is it to increase the engagement of your already existing audience? If you are able to pinpoint the end goal that you have in mind, the easier it will be to define and to measure success for your campaign.

It might also be a good idea to establish some broad, non-specific goals as well. Goals like increasing your monthly traffic by a set amount or increasing the number of social shares are good general objectives that can give you a benchmark of how your campaign is doing as a whole. In time, you will also want to modify or switch out these goals with more important ones as your campaign progresses.

Identifying Your AudienceNarrowing down your audience is an essential part of optimizing your ad campaign since you can carefully focus your marketing efforts in a more customized and more personal manner than simply casting a wide net over the general Internet viewership. By finding the correct target audience that matches your campaign, you will be able to create content that fits perfectly with their needs and truly grab their attention.

You can narrow down your target market by doing some basic research and breaking them down into demographics. Based on your past sales or market data, you can segregate your market by demographic factors like age, gender, income, location, occupation, marital status, number of children, etc. You will then find some common factors in your market that you can focus on. Ideally, you will want to categorize your audience into one or two core markets, as well as around two to three secondary markets. Creating this segregation will give you a better picture of your audience and their basic lifestyle that you can tailor fit your content to.

Google Analytics in particular can give you a pretty good overview of some key statistical data under its Audience tab. For instance, you can look at specific demographics like age and gender, as well as view your audience's geographical location. You can then line up this data with pertinent numerical data like your site's number of sessions or bounce rate per month. By doing this, you go deeper into picking out which statistics and its derivatives can be chosen as good metrics for your campaign.

Determine Your MetricsNow that you've identified your audience, you can then move on to measuring your success by using solid metrics that check to see if your campaign is moving closer towards its desired goal. You can then pick out metrics which hit your website's goals and use this information to make tactical decisions regarding your campaign.

Analytics tools like those of Google are chock full of these metrics, so be sure to choose the ones that line up perfectly with your site's objectives. Taking our earlier examples regarding goals, if your campaign's focus is to be able to increase audience or follower influence, then taking note of the amount of social shares across a given time period is a great metric to keep track of.

One of the great things about the tools Google Analytics offers is that it gives a lot of flexibility in which you want the data to be presented. You can even create filters to show only certain statistics on your dashboard. This is most useful if you only want to receive the most relevant data that can properly track your campaign's progress.

Establish KPIs to Track Your Campaign SuccessAccording to www.hostingfacts.com, once you've determined which metrics are aligned with your site's objective, it's time to create a list of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to track how successful your campaign is doing so far. Since your KPIs are reliant on your metrics, you will have to set the bar on what is an acceptable standard that each metric has to reach on a regular basis. Setting realistic KPIs will help in keeping your site focused and always aspire to reach this goal. You are then free to make any necessary adjustments if you feel that the standards have been set too low or if you have already completed some of the more short term goals.

To give an example, if monthly unique visits are one of your desired metrics, then how many visits a month should you be getting to call your campaign successful? Sites that focus on social media as its main driver usually use this as one of their KPIs. Likewise, e-commerce sites will want to include the number of inquiries and the number of conversions (either as sales or qualified leads) as part of your KPIs.

In the end, measuring your site's success ultimately depends on the correct identification of your site's objective, your audience, and how you equate success. By choosing the right metrics you will be able to steer your site towards a steady course to digital marketing success.

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